The Tudors for Kids

The
Tudors for Kids

The Tudor era was 1485-1600. It's
called the "Tudors" after the Tudor family, who were the kings
and queens of England during this time. King Henry the 8th and Queen Elizabeth
1 were both royal members of the Tudor family. Although towns were
beginning to spring up and grow, most of the population during Tudor
times lived in villages. They were farmers.

Villages: Villages during Tudor times had many similarities. Nearly all had a church.
Typically, the church was the largest building in the village. When services were not
in session, the
church was used to house livestock, so the floor of the church was
usually covered with straw. Many villages had a town hall. This was a simple
building where elected officials met to discuss whatever needed to
be discussed about village matters. Each village usually had a candlestick maker, a tanner (who tanned
animal skins), and a mill to grind grain. Some of the larger villages had a
theatre where live plays were performed. People enjoyed market day, when they
brought their goods to town to sell. The church offered many activities. And, it
was still a time of knights and jousts, which were always popular. Life was
tough for most; people worked very hard growing food, caring for cattle, and
making clothes and other things they needed.

Social Scale:

At the bottom of the social scale were peasants,
tenant farmers. Peasants were extremely poor, and life was tough for
peasants as it had been for centuries. B

There was a new class of social scale - the
yeoman. Yeoman were a step above peasants. Yeoman's were landowners, or had
jobs for the nobles. Many had tenant farmers who tilled their personal land.
Yeoman were usually pretty rich. Yeoman houses were built with
two stories, a brick chimney, several rooms, and wood furniture. The first floor was the
sitting room, dining room, and kitchen and perhaps a getaway room for the
husband. The second floor was bedrooms. Some yeoman homes had a separate
barn to hold animals and store straw in the winter. They had a well for
water.

At the top of the heap were the nobles, the
lords and ladies.

School: Many Tudor children, both
boys and girls, learned to read and write. If you misbehaved, you were beaten.
Sons of the rich might go on to university at either Oxford or Cambridge. Those
who did not go to university might work in the towns as an apprentice for 7
years, learning a trade. Some boys stayed in the village and remained farmers.

Clothing: Clothing was very
important during Tudor times. You were supposed to be able to identify someone's
social class by their clothing. There were laws that said what materials you
could use to make your clothes depending upon your wealth status. Only the very
rich could wear silk with gold or silver embroidery thread. Rich women wore silk
stockings. Clothing became more practical as families were less wealthy, with
linen clothes in the summer and wool clothes in the winter. For the poor,
clothes had to be tough, made of coarse and scratchy wool. Hats, however, were
worn by everyone. Still, the material that made the hat, and the hat design
itself, was controlled by law. Some people ignored the law and wore what they
wanted. They risked punishment, and punishment during Tudor times was quite
severe.

Medicine: During Tudor times, most
doctors were expensive and many were not very good. Doctors had little
understanding of disease or of the human body and how it worked. Medical
solutions to illness could cause more problems than they cured.

War: War changed dramatically. The
longbow went out of use because guns were invented during Tudor times. Guns took
a long time to load, so warriors also carried pikes - long spears, to protect
themselves.

Food: At least they ate well during
Tudor times, at least they did on the farms, in the villages. Food could be
scarce, however, for the poor in the towns. The rich had the finest food as
usual. There were new foods from the New World brought back by explorers, foods
like potatoes, chocolate, peanuts, pineapple, vanilla, tomatoes, and turkey.